| | Indefinite Hiatus | |
I hope to return to this project someday, but it isn't feasible with my current health issues and life circumstances. I have to cut things from my workload so I can breathe. However, I still intend to complete my current li...
Source: Gardenia: A Review Shop by -Chrysalis_Realm Genre: Short story Secondary/subgenre: Slice of life Mature: N LGBTQIAP+: N Status: Complete First impressions: 36/40 Digging deeper: 89/100 Final thoughts: Complete
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First impressions: 36/40
Title: 10/10
The word itself could have a cute, sweet, happy nostalgic connotation, or it could go in a sadder direction. Based on the combination of the cover and story description, I'm thinking cute and sweet here, and I like it.
Story description: 8/10
As with the title and cover, simplicity reigns here, and there's nothing wrong with that. Photos and memories. Love it.
I'm back and forth about the four short paragraphs, but the more I look at them, the more I think they work best in this format. Merging any of them together doesn't feel right to me.
Grammatically, the commas in the first and third paragraphs should be periods, but that's about it for problems there. In the second paragraph, you could add a comma after "Sometimes," and adding "the" before "hopes" and "them" after "relive" makes it flow a little better to me, but I think that's a stylistic choice. And in the last paragraph, you may want to change "captured" to "captures," since the rest of the blurb is in the present tense. I think it works either way, though, depending on what meaning you want to convey here.
Cover: 10/10
Again, this is a cute, sweet cover that's the perfect level of simplicity for a short story. A monochrome background, a realistic cartoon-style sketch of a hand holding a camera and snapping a picture—and that's all you really need. The title, subtitle, and your name are all in clear, easy-to-read font, sized, placed, and colored just right, and the little heart is a nice addition.
First chapter (and everything that came before it): 8/10
Foreword: In the second paragraph, I'd change "It" to "They," since you were talking about plural pictures and videos in the previous sentence. But otherwise, this is a short, sweet, and to the point disclaimer with your personal touch on it, and I like it.
Smile please: Aw, this is really cute! I love how you continue the theme of photos taken at different points of the family's life throughout the story. This isn't a tear jerker for me, although I saw in the comments it is for some people, but it's very heartwarming. It gives me happy nostalgia and makes me think about flipping through old scrapbook albums.
